Imperial Legacies, Design, and Global History
Links design thinking, imperial memory, and cultural production across time.
Oklahoma State University
Urban Homelands
Boston College
What the Emperor Built
Princeton University
Gawkers: Art and Audience in Late Nineteenth-Century France
Universidade de Aveiro
Towards a Design Observatory: The Case of Scholarly Design Research in Portugal
Flinders University
Our Corner of the Somme: Australia at Villers-Bretonneux
Overview
This theme explores how empires — past and present — shape design, urban form, and cultural imagination. It connects material culture to political ambition, and shows how memory is crafted through buildings, exhibitions, and visual media. Design is not just functional; it's ideological — reflecting imperial hierarchies, asserting narratives of power, and lingering in public space long after formal empires collapse. Through case studies from Europe, Asia, and post-colonial landscapes, this guide examines how imperial legacies continue to influence identity, heritage, and aesthetic judgment today.
Why It Matters
- Design as Ideology: Imperial projects often used design to assert dominance — in cities, museums, art, and infrastructure.
- Historical Continuity: Many global aesthetics, museum collections, and planning models still carry the imprint of empire.
- Contested Memory: Monuments, urban names, and architectural styles are now sites of debate, protest, and reclamation.
- Cultural Production: Audiences, artists, and designers have long negotiated the tension between aesthetic innovation and political control.
Core Concepts
Architecture of Rule
- Analyzes the material strategies of Chinese imperial power through building campaigns.
- Shows how emperors used architecture to assert cosmological and political authority.
Postcolonial Urban Identity
- Investigates how Indigenous and settler narratives compete and coexist in urban planning and memory in the U.S.
- 'Urban homelands' as sites of cultural negotiation and reclamation.
Spectacle, Gaze, and Power
- Explores how late-19th-century French art shaped and was shaped by imperial spectatorship.
- Connects aesthetic modernity with the politics of viewing and being seen.
National Memory and Battlefield Design
- Focuses on how Australia commemorated its role in WWI through designed landscapes in France.
- Examines memorial architecture as a form of national myth-making beyond its borders.
Decentering Design History
- Proposes a 'design observatory' to track how scholarly research can rethink design outside dominant Anglo-European narratives.
- Emphasizes regional and decolonial approaches to design scholarship.
Key Questions
Design Power
- How has design been used historically to assert control, extract resources, or reframe identity?
- What traces of empire still shape public space today?
Memory Monumentality
- How should societies deal with imperial monuments and built symbols?
- Is redesign, removal, or reinterpretation the most just response?
Art Audience
- Who was the intended viewer in imperial art and exhibition spaces?
- How does the act of viewing reproduce political hierarchy?
Global Design Histories
- How can we write design history that includes the Global South, Indigenous knowledge, and post-imperial innovation?
- What methodologies decolonize how we see, study, and teach design?
Suggested Use
For Designers Architects
A lens for reflecting on how aesthetics are never neutral — and how legacy can shape unconscious choices.
For Historians Educators
A thematic anchor for courses on colonialism, art history, museum studies, and global design.
For Policy Makers Curators
A foundation for addressing cultural heritage questions in a post-imperial context.